Chapter 7
It was out of an abundance of compassion and a lack of information coming in to keep them occupied that the Barkley brothers went to the town cemetery and watched the remainder of the Kyles family go into the ground beside Korby. Rev. Johnson said a few words and the sheriff came, but otherwise only the gravediggers were there, and no one was really mourning anything but the waste of the lives of all the Kyleses. Utter waste.
As they left the cemetery, Jarrod said, "If nothing else happens today or tonight – if no more bodies turn up – I think you boys can get back to work on the ranch tomorrow afternoon and leave me to my work. All of my work. I've got a lot more to do than chase these murders down."
"We'll see," Nick said.
"Do you think you'll hear anything from Pinkerton today?" Heath asked.
"I don't know," Jarrod said. "Unless Isaac Imwald is in jail somewhere it might be difficult to track him down, and if this Mrs. Rivers has been living a quiet life, there might not be much on her to find."
"Why does she interest you so much?" Nick asked. "Other than the fact that she is very beautiful."
Jarrod gave a wry smile. "Just an instinct, Nick. Just the need to know what she has to do with Mrs. Ashby, and did she have anything to do with Col. Ashby."
They went to Jarrod's office so he could get some work done. They were hoping for some word from Pinkerton, but there was none. Jarrod was about to suggest Nick and Heath go play cards at a saloon so as not to drive Esther crazy when the sheriff came in.
"I just found out a couple things," the sheriff said. "Asa Harmon is coming down here from Sacramento tomorrow. And Claude Cole from the bank came over and told me that Mrs. Ashby is having all her money transferred to a bank in Sacramento. I went over to talk to her but she wasn't there and neither was this Mrs. Rivers. Her houseman said he didn't know where they were."
"You don't think she's taken off for Sacramento, do you?" Nick asked.
"I don't know," the sheriff said. "I checked the train and she hasn't left town that way."
Jarrod frowned, thinking. "It doesn't necessarily mean anything if she did. Heaven knows she can't stay here anymore. The shame of what her husband did since even before the war is gonna be held over her by every law-abiding person in Stockton, whether she knew what he was doing or not. If she's leaving, it could be purely for that reason."
"People do tend to be that way," the sheriff said. "I'm gonna do what I can to find her and see what her plans are. I just wanted you to know in case you found out anything from Pinkerton."
"Nothing yet," Jarrod said. "I might get an address for Mrs. Rivers out of them today, but it's gonna take longer to get any more information on her, if there's any to get. And as for Imwald, if he's not in jail or dead, it might take quite a while to track him down."
"Well, in the meantime, I'll just hope there's no more killing," the sheriff said.
"If this was Col. Ashby's cartel cleaning up after themselves," Jarrod said, "they may be done cleaning."
"We can only hope," the sheriff said. "Mr. Harmon might have something for us about that. But that still leaves us with trying to get the men who did it brought to justice."
"You'd better get ready for the possibility that we never do," Jarrod said. "Col. Ashby avoided being found out for 20 years. These narcotics suppliers are slippery."
"Something else we better look out for," Heath said. "If we start getting close to finding out who did it – well, they're not gonna treat us the way the Kyleses treated me. They don't just beat people up. These suppliers kill people."
"Which is why we're gonna keep sticking together for a while," Nick said. "Regardless of whether you think Heath and I can go back to work tomorrow or not, Pappy."
"All right, all right," Jarrod said. "We'll keep being the three musketeers for a while."
A runner from the telegraph office came in while they were talking. "Wire for you, Mr. Barkley," he said and handed it to Jarrod.
Jarrod tipped the boy and he left as Jarrod opened the telegram and read. "Well, we have a Sacramento address for Mrs. Rivers. Nice part of town. The lady has money."
"I wonder where it came from," Nick said, suspicious.
"Everybody associated with the Colonel or Mrs. Ashby is suspect right now," the sheriff agreed. "What's that address?"
Jarrod read it out and the sheriff jotted it down in a notebook he carried. Jarrod said, "The address is all it gives us, except for one more important thing. She's not using the name Rivers. She's using the name Ashby."
"That's interesting," Heath said.
"We'll check her out with Asa Harmon when he gets here tomorrow," the sheriff said. "In the meantime, if you hear anything from Pinkerton – "
"I'll let you know right away," Jarrod said. "I'll check in with Mike Chang again, too, although I doubt he knows anything more. He'd have gotten in touch with me if he did."
"Things will come together," the sheriff said, "which is a good reason for you boys to stick together."
"You know," Heath said thoughtfully, "one thing we never did find out is why Korby killed Col. Ashby in the first place."
"He never gave me a reason, not even before we took him off to the gallows. Did he ever say anything to you, Jarrod?" the sheriff asked.
Jarrod shook his head. "To me he just kept claiming he was innocent, and after that outburst in the courtroom, he clammed up entirely."
Jarrod's secretary, Esther, had been listening in without speaking, simply waiting for instructions.
Jarrod looked to her and said, "Esther, I think you'd better head on home and stay there for a while. At least until we get a better handle on all this."
"I'll have a deputy check on you pretty frequently," the sheriff said.
"Do you think I'm in danger?" Esther said.
Jarrod shook his head. "I doubt it. People who have a lot of interaction with the law know that I wouldn't tell you anything confidential that Korby told me, or write it down anywhere. They'll come after me before they come after you."
Esther gathered herself up, saying, "Let me know when you want me to come back, Mr. Barkley."
"I'll walk you home," the sheriff said, and the two of them left together.
"Well, now," Nick said after they were gone. "What next, Counselor?"
"You remember that sale of horses you have pending with the Norman ranch in Salinas?" Jarrod said.
"Oh, yeah," Nick said. "I'd pretty much forgotten about that."
"I haven't," Jarrod said. "That's one of the other things I need to get to today. I've got that contract to work out and two others. My regular work doesn't go away just because of these killings."
"Get the cards out," Heath said. "Nick and I will just settle down right here and spend some time losing imaginary money."
"What 'imaginary'?" Nick said. "I intend to collect."
"In that case, my game's gonna get a bit more cut-throat," Heath said.
Jarrod said, "We'll head home in a couple hours. Whatever I don't finish here, I'll finish there."
"Do you have any problem if Heath and I go check on the herd after we get home?" Nick asked.
"No, so long as you take somebody with you," Jarrod said.
"We'll head out with the night crew. We should be all right."
